I’m not saying authors can or should abuse their fan base, but fans should not pester authors.

Gaiman’s response is classic.

Weirdly, a friend and I were discussing this very topic yesterday. I’ve have been mostly patiently waiting for the third book (The Captal’s Tower) in Melanie Rawn’s fantasy series. I think I’m entering year 14 since the second book was published. I know she hasn’t been writing, and I know why, and I accept that. I also know that she has published recently two books in a completely different series….which is slightly frustrating, but as my friend pointed out…the writing muse leads you, not the other way around. So, I’m remaining patient…and hoping that if she doesn’t want to write the book she will release a 2-page synopsis with all the questions answered. Because I don’t want another Pretender….

Oh, and if CL Wilson needs longer, then she needs longer. I’d rather an author requested more time than published a book they weren’t happy with…and that had ‘issues’!

AND today I also woke up to the news that Patrick Rothfuss finished the sequel to the Name of the Wind

That’s particularly great news because your review of the 1st book convinced me to buy it!

@ Kat – “a series book that feels underdone” It needed to cook a little longer? That’s a perfect description for books that feel rushed! I’m going to start calling them that.

No, a reader is not entitled to jackshit. We can want and we can hope for. Obviously, we can expect something (a good read, the culmination of a specific story thread, etc.) but we are not entitled to have any of those expectations met.

The only thing readers (or consumers of any product, really) are entitled to is to make the decision whether to spend their money on this or that product (or both).

(Now I’m off to read the previous comments)

About two years ago, I started mentally yelling at this author to stop saying these things. I can understand needing to pimp the book, get excitement going for it, but since readers will NOT always feel the same as the author, I just got this sinking feeling. Sure enough, comments after book releases were often along the lines of, “The author said this book would be SO hot, but it’s not at all. The action promised wasn’t anything new in terms of tragedy, etc. I feel cheated…”

Some fans had come to depend heavily on the author’s own opinion and hype of the work – and they ended up feeling misled. I wished that the author had phrased their words differently so that they didn’t sound like promises to readers, but more their personal take on the book. None of this, “You just wait, you’ll see what I mean. This book is on fire hot.” Well, those kinds of words generate excitement and fans will remember and discuss those words later.

On the other hand, I learned a while back that since we all have differing opinions, it won’t always work out the same for readers as it does for authors, how well the story reads to us. Some people will still hang onto such “promises” and it’s not always pretty, the results.

Thinking on other aspects of this debate, whenever I see an author these days that’s had a long delay in a book, I almost immediately think personal life, something’s going on and it’s none of my business as the author is just as susceptible to issues as I am. They need their space, too. It’s got to be so tough, though, to decide what to ignore and what not to. Defending themselves seems to get them labeled a difficult and argumentative author these days – a BAD author, but sitting silent only encourages some fans to get nastier as they wonder why the author dares to ignore their concerns. What’s a person to do?

Why? Because he told us himself it was already done and just needed some cleaning up. That was four years ago.

I’ll be the first to admit writing can take a long time (my research for my own novel is taking way longer than I thought it would), and I’ll also admit that GRRM’s last book (Feast for Crows) was a bit shaky and maybe that’s because he had to rush it.

But there’s unfair expectations and then there’s putting your money where your mouth is. GRRM told fans that he wrote a huge book that was too big to fit between two covers so he was going to split it in half and publish them at different times. He essentially told his readers that “Dance for Dragons” WAS ALREADY WRITTEN, and just needed to be polished up. When the author of the series itself tells you something, you believe it, so when the so-called polishing takes four years it can get a little irksome, I’ll admit.

So maybe this isn’t a case of GRRM not writing fast enough to meet his readers demands, but more a case of GRRM making unwise promises and disappointing his fans in that way.

Which leads me to the crux of my argument – a writer isn’t entitled to write faster or worse to satisfy their readers, but in the age of blogging and twitter they should know that if they make promises or expectations, they’re going to be taken seriously and not well if they don’t match them.